Autumn

That soft twist, that knotwhere your knee proclaims its endingnever entering the beginningof that curve of shin and ankle.Always I fear this terrainof twisted flesh, evidence of somelacking, some loss,caught in my gut like a tight pale pear.But I am amazedat how you arrive again and again,amputee of summer, with a slight wobble,the light crooked and dispersingwith a limp against sky these days.How you offer a tight smile each eveninginto this clenched stump of sky,the lump of absence heavyupon you, wantingto have someone, something,just to be anything but alone.